The Ultimate Guide to Office 365 Migration

Roughly 80% of Fortune 500 companies have moved their business data to Office 365. But it’s not just the big players who are taking advantage of Microsoft’s powerful suite.

A growing number of start-ups, small and medium sized businesses are following suit—and finding great benefit.

In all fields and industries, organisations of all sizes are moving the needle, driving growth and pushing their industry forward. Yet most businesses continue to use the same outdated technology, underpinning their entire work, even though new solutions have significantly advanced these legacy tools.

Why would businesses continue to limp forward, hamstrung by their own outdated tools? Many site reasons like staff being used to the way they work, or their current tools are good enough even though they’re rough around the edges and a little clunky.

But one of the biggest reasons for failure to upgrade is data migration. Most businesses believe they have too much data to migrate, or it’s too much of a hassle to migrate all their data to a new platform.

Nowadays, that just simply isn’t true. In reality, the risk of continuing to use legacy platforms means significantly reduced support over time. Eventually certain tools and platforms stop receiving vital updates and other related support, which leaves you vulnerable.

Not to mention that when tools are slow or fail to integrate with new or existing solutions, overall productivity takes a nosedive. This creates a serious potential risk for money to be left on the table in terms of failure to optimise staff time and collaborative power, as well as even costing the business money.

One study revealed that for every $13,291 worth of salary, disengaged employees account for a $4,520 cost to their employer.

Why migrate to Office 365

Productivity Gains

Microsoft’s Office 365 is the total package. A state of the art enterprise IT environment that is single handedly altering how organisations of all size do business.

One way Office 365 is improving workplace productivity is through cross-platform support. This allows employees and users to access their documents on all devices (PCs, Macs, iOS and Android). Likewise, users can access their work from anywhere at any time.

Another significant driver of productivity with Office 365 is the collaborative power. Users can share documents and collaborate in real time with the ability to track changes to specific users. This reduces the number of files being created and keeps everyone working on the same page—and not accidentally on old or outdated documents.

Flexibility

One particular benefit of Office 365 that entices people is the flexibility it offers users. Some organisations have driven costs down significantly by allowing bring-your-own-device initiatives as Office 365 lets users sign into accounts from multiple devices.

Business director and co-founder of Imagination Yoga, Jessica McClintic, was drawn to Office 365 for the suite’s flexible per-user pricing structure. After many years, with the addition of a number of franchisees and licensees, the business now uses Office 365 to share and distribute documents—even using the suite’s video conferencing tool to conduct yoga training.

“I have teams in Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania, so if they have questions when I give them information about a new posture or pose, we can hold a video conference,” McClintic Says. “It’s nice to have everyone rolled into one tool.”

Likewise, Office 365 offers a number of flexible deployment options, depending on the organisation’s migration timeline and security needs. Office 365 can be deployed on-premise, via cloud or as a hybrid deployment.

Significant Cost Savings

While many businesses cite time savings, whether through improvements to productivity and collaboration, as an important element that drove them to migrating to the cloud—cost is still one of the most significant drivers.

The Girl Scouts of Colorado had recently merged all of their individual councils into one, with five offices. The new arrangement required cross-site collaboration, during which time they found themselves paying inflated bills for a 3rd party web conferencing solution and phone calls.

After migrating to the cloud with Office 365, the organisation was able to address several issues in one go:

The need for 3rd party solutions were eliminated, as employees were able to call and conference through Office 365

The number of servers the organisation required dropped from 10 to 5—two physical servers and 3 virtual servers

The Office 365 software suite came with collaborative tools that enabled employees to work together through instant messaging, remote desktop connections and file sharing—all without the need for a costly VPN

The migration came at a time when the organisation’s infrastructure costs were rapidly increasing, due to servers coming to the end of their lifetime.

The organisation explained that, had they not migrated, they were going to have to purchase, build and maintain several servers, which can be very costly.

Users gain access to all enhancements upon release as Microsoft handles all the updates in a way that doesn’t inhibit availability.

Predictable Costs

The Office 365 suite gives organisations the freedom and flexibility of scaling up or down as and when you need it.

Previously, organisations purchased Office products as they hired new employees. If that person left, or the business scaled down, Microsoft doesn’t let you return that software.

Office 365 scales with your business by allowing you to pay for what you need when you need it. When your organisation grows you can take on additional services and data storage, or reduce those services if needed.

A Simplified Experience

Office 365 allows you to pick the tools you need (Microsoft also has some great business apps—some of which are free!) and access them all in the one place.

Where technology and business are heading, Office 365 is the future of workplace productivity and collaboration. The question isn’t if an organisation should make the switch, but rather when. Increase productivity and manage costs by contacting us today.